Right now I'm making a bit more than $24/hour and live in a low cost of living, rural area. I'm fortunate enough to have been blessed with inherited money after my father's passing and now have a paid off house and vehicle. My living expenses are low to say the least. I have ZERO debt, I invest 15% of my income and put 10% into savings, 25% goes towards "wants" and the rest goes to bills.
All of that said, there is absolutely NO WAY I would be able to save/invest/spend the percentages I do if I had to pay rent, or a mortgage, and a car payment on top of that. If I had kids it would be even worse. I literally cannot even imagine if I had to pay for a kid right now and I'm in a good spot financially speaking. I would be BARELY scraping by at my pay rate (reminder: I'm in a low cost of living rural area).
How can you POSSIBLY think $24/hr is too much money???
I promise you the companies that are now forced to pay $20/hr are more than capable of doing so. They're only laying off people in protest; it's purely for show. They must have at least 60 locations nationwide and be considered "fast food". These companies aren't broke. Starbucks for example, which just closed 7 stores in protest had a net income of $4.125 billion in 2023